Last Days in Minnesota ...

Moving to a new country is ... well, there's no other word for it -- INSANE.  How do you pack up one life as you prepare for another?  On the one hand, you're completely excited to start your adventure.  On the other hand there are tearful goodbyes ...

So right before I left we had a little family party to say  farewell and also to celebrate my mom's birthday:

My cousin Nils (a world traveler extraordinaire himself) came to wish me Bon Voyage!

 

It was not easy to say goodbye to anyone, but these 2 (my niece Naomi and my nephew Nathaniel) completely wrecked me... I mean, how do you say goodbye to these faces?  (Sobbing might have occurred on the car ride home.)

Naomi took this shot of my dad & I:

And then I came home to this ...

 Yes, my darlings, the mess in my house was EPIC.

There were a lot of these moments:

And then ... as if to say "hey lady, why don't you get going to sunnier climes?" Mother Nature gifted us with snow the day before I left ...  A very proper way to say goodbye to Minnesota!